The Servants of the Storm

by Jack Campbell

  Mari joined Asha at the bottom of the ladder. “Yes. We’ll keep on going upriver and see if the Imperials react. They may not have had any idea what was going on.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Banda said. “We can’t do much in the way of inspecting the hull for damage, but it would be wise to pull up the deck plates and see if any leaks can be seen in the bilges.”

  “I’ll do it,” Mari said. “We forgot to bring an Apprentice along to handle jobs like that.”

  Banda laughed, and Alain realized that Mari had shared a Mechanic joke with him.

  Alain turned and looked back through the branches of the camouflage. The lights around the watch towers were receding as the ship labored up the river. But he could see new movement at the base of the one they had just left. “There are lights leaving the Imperial watch tower and going down to the river near where we were.”

  “I wonder what they’ll make of the gouge we left in that sandbar? They shouldn’t be able to send a diver down to look at it until daylight,” Banda said.

  Mari came back, breathing heavily. “I checked under the deck plates. Those things are heavy. No sign of a leak. Are the Imperials chasing us?”

  “No,” Alain said.

  “We’ll see what day brings.” Banda exhaled heavily as he finally relaxed a little. “There shouldn’t be much traffic on the river at night, so I’ll stay right in the center of the channel. I’m getting a better feel for handling this thing. We need to get far enough past Landfall to be able to find a spot on or near the river bank to hide during the day. But not too far, or the river banks might be crowded with barges and other small craft that have laid up for the night.”

  The lights on either side of the river that marked the fraying edges of the city were dwindling, replaced by darker areas of open country. From what Alain could see of the river banks, the land was losing its civilized, contained, controlled, and built-up appearance, instead slipping into the anarchy and lack of discipline that nature gloried in. Even the Empire had not been able to impose order on every piece of the land it claimed as its own.

  “You’ve only been to Landfall the one time?” Banda asked, his voice hushed to match the quiet outside.

  “Yes,” Alain said. “When Mari and I were heading for the Sharr Isles.”

  “Landfall is what they call the first place a ship reaches shore,” Banda said. “Is this where the ship from another star first set people on this world? How many people have lived here since, not having any idea of what the name truly meant? It will be a great day when they can be told. When everyone can be told. Do you think we’ll go back to calling the world Demeter instead of Dematr?”

  “I do not know. People can be…stubborn,” Alain said.

  “Truth from a Mage,” Banda replied, using the old saying for something wildly improbable, but now giving it another meaning. He fell silent after that, as did Alain, until the growing light to the east warned of dawn approaching.

  As Banda had predicted, there were a number of boats and barges tied up or anchored near the riverbanks. But they had chosen spots easy to reach, avoiding areas where vegetation, indents in the river, or rocks complicated getting in and out.

  Captain Banda cautiously brought the Terror close in to the river bank where several trees leaned out over a rock ledge. The current had scooped out a deeper spot next to the bank, giving plenty of room for the bulk of the Terror’s hull underwater, and the natural obstructions of nearby rocks made the pile of driftwood atop the Terror look perfectly natural in this spot. “Those trees should keep us shaded much of the day,” Banda said to Alain. “Which will make it much harder for anyone to spot anything under our camouflage. Dav!” he called down. “Come out the aft hatch and see if you can find a way to tie us up that no can spot. Otherwise we’ll anchor.”

  Mechanic Dav popped up through the deck behind the steering room, waved at them, then clambered over the wood hiding the Terror until he found a boulder in the water that he could loop a line around.

  Banda opened the forward hatch above himself and Alain, allowing fresh air to enter along with the smells and sounds of the outside. “We should keep the hatches open during the day as much as possible to air out the ship.” Banda yawned. “It’s been a long day. I need to get as much sleep as I can. When is Mage Asha relieving you?”

  “Very soon. She will take half the day, and I will take the other, just as Mari and Dav will share time on the boiler creature.”

  “It’s…not really a creature, you know.”

  Alain shook his head. “I know Mechanics do not consider it so, but it breathes, it does work, it gives off heat, it must be fed.”

  Banda paused. “Yes. But it’s not alive.”

  “Neither are a Mage’s spell creatures such as dragons,” Alain said.

  “Oh.” Banda thought, then shrugged. “I suppose by a Mage’s definition it is sort of a creature, then. How does Mari take it that you call boilers creatures?”

  “She says it is something required of her in life.” Alain took a moment to recall. “Those are not the exact words. What she says is that it is something…she has to live with. But that means the same thing.”

  “Not exactly,” Banda said, smiling as if Alain had just told a joke.

  In some ways he would never understand Mechanics.

  * * * *

  About noon, after Asha had spent the morning on watch, Alain came back up to the steering room to take his turn at sentry duty. Asha was sitting where Banda would to drive the ship, so Alain took the seat behind it that he had occupied the night before. “There has been nothing of concern,” Asha said. “I have seen nothing but boats passing us.” She bent a sharp look on Alain. “Have you seen anything?”

  “My foresight?” Alain asked. “No. It has given no warning.”

  “We have not spoken for some time, because Mechanic Dav and I were on the Pride while you were flying by Roc. Have you seen anything else of Mari?”

  He knew what she meant. The vision of Mari at some future time, lying on a surface made of fitted stone blocks, her jacket wet with blood, apparently near death. “No.”

  “If you cannot stay with her at all times, you can always call on me,” Asha said, gazing out one of the portholes. “We will keep that vision from happening. You and Mari must stay with each other. —Mechanic Dav has asked me if I would promise myself to him,” she added in a sudden burst of words.

  “What did you tell him?” Alain asked.

  “I said I must think.” Asha stayed silent for a while. “A Mage does not marry. A Mage has no family.”

  “This is not so. Mari has shown us a different wisdom.”

  “But is it the same for me as for you? Some things are different for women.”

  “Does Mechanic Dav think it is different?” Alain said.

  Asha’s lip twitched in a tiny Mage smile. “He does not. He said we could be as…happy…as you and Mari.”

  “But you do not think so?”

  “I do not know. I am a Mage.” She closed her eyes and Alain saw a shadow of pain flit across her features. “Mechanic Dav has a family. They are Mechanics. What happens if he brings a Mage to them?”

  “They should be happy if he is happy,” Alain said.

  “You know what Mages are,” Asha said. “What we have lived with. What others see when they look at us. Like Mari’s family.”

  “Mari’s mother and sister accept me as a Mage. Does Mechanic Dav see ill in you being a Mage?” Alain asked.

  “He…” She looked down. “He says I am a gift to all who know me. How could anyone believe that?”

  “When I say such things to Mari, she laughs.”

  “Why would she laugh?”

  “I do not know. But it is a happy sound.” Alain gave Asha the most encouraging look he had learned to make. “You fear that a Mage would not be accepted by the family of Mechanic Dav, and you fear that a Mage is not someone Mechanic Dav should exchange promises with. I will tell you what Mari would say: that a
nyone would be fortunate to have your promise. Would Mari count you as a friend if being a Mage was so ill a thing? And for the family, there is a place in Marandur you should see. It will tell you much of importance about the family of Mechanic Dav.”

  “In Marandur?” Asha nodded slowly. “You are much wiser in such things than I, Mage Alain.”

  “I often do not feel wise,” Alain admitted.

  “Doubt about your wisdom can be the clearest sign of wisdom,” Asha said. "I will decide after I see this place in Marandur that you speak of.” She paused, but Alain could sense that she was going to say more and so stayed quiet. “Mage Alain? Had things been different, could you and I have been such a pair?”

  He had deliberately avoided thinking about that for some time. “I do not know. But it was something that could not happen, not unless I met Mari and relearned how to feel.”

  “I do not know, either,” Asha said. “We met only because the Mage Guild took us as acolytes, but because we were acolytes and then Mages we could not even be friends. I do know that I am happy I was free to be with Dav. You once said that Mari defined the world illusion for you. It shocked me. But now I understand, for that is how I feel about Dav. I will—" She stopped speaking, looking toward the trees screening them from the river bank.

  Alain felt it, too. “A Mage approaches along the road. She is making no attempt to conceal her presence.”

  Asha raised herself enough to peek through the hatch. She held the position, then slowly lowered herself and whispered to Alain. “I hear the sounds of orders being called. I know voices of this kind from my contracts with the legions. Legionaries approach along the road from the direction of Landfall.”

  He wondered whether to call Mari and the other Mechanics, but the decision was taken from him as a head wearing the helmet of the Imperial legions stuck through the far side of the trees.

  “Yeah, it’s a bunch of wood, Centurion!”

  The reply came faintly but clearly to Alain. “Is it wreckage? Recent wreckage?”

  The legionary had already looked away from the raft of driftwood hiding the upper portion of the Terror and was gazing across the river. “Nah. Not wreckage at all. Just a bunch of branches and stuff that drifted down river and got stuck here.”

  “Any sign of a kraken?”

  Another voice sounded from a legionary who must be near the first. “Centurion, aside from wreckage, what else are we looking for?”

  “Tentacles, you idiot! Tentacles attached to a body large enough to break a ship! The watch towers reported what must have been a kraken that got stuck in the shallows near one of them last night. It might have headed up river once it got free. Didn’t you get a briefing from your section leader before you were put on scout?”

  “Uh, no?”

  “Unless there’s something else worth checking out over there, get your butts moving!” the centurion ordered, his voice now carrying clearly to Alain as the legionaries marched by. “I want us to hit the boundary marker so we can report the river all clear and get back to Landfall before dark!”

  “Soon as we check out the underbrush for any signs of the kraken, Centurion!” Alain heard the nearby legionary continue speaking to his comrade, though in a much lower voice. “A kraken. Gah. No wonder we got that Lady Mage with us.”

  “Maybe we ought to take our time checking out this spot,” his companion suggested. “Get some rest from all the marching, you know.”

  “Not for me! For once, I’m all for doing what the Centurion says. I don’t want to be out here after dark.”

  “Why? You afraid of Mara?”

  “Blazes, yeah! Aren’t you?”

  “Nah. I’m too old for her tastes. She’d snap you up, though. Mara likes young blood.”

  “Shut it! That’s not funny! Come on!”

  Alain heard the two legionaries leaving. He and Asha waited until they could see the Imperial search group come into sight well down the road, still heading upriver.

  “I understand now why the Mage was not hiding her presence,” Asha said. “If there was a kraken and it sensed a Mage, it would be drawn to her.”

  “I did not know that of krakens. Will you stay a little longer here so that I can tell Mari what we have heard?” Receiving her assent, Alain left Asha on watch. He went down the ladder quietly, around the curtain that was now blocking light and sound from getting into the parts of the ship where Mechanics Banda and Dav were sleeping, then back to where growing heat marked the presence of the Mechanic boiler that Mari tended. The roaring sound from the boiler was much softer. Alain had always thought that meant the creature was sleeping, even though Mari insisted it did not sleep.

  Mari listened to Alain’s report, then shook her head. “A kraken?”

  “If I did not know of this ship,” Alain said, “and heard the noises last night, and saw the marks left by a large body in the sandbar this morning, I would think it was a kraken that had done it.”

  “The only logical explanation they know of,” Mari said. “We’re lucky that krakens are real— Oh, no, I said it. Go ahead.”

  “What?” Alain asked.

  “Say it!”

  “Nothing is real,” Alain said.

  “Right. Wouldn’t the Mages in Landfall know whether or not a kraken had been created?”

  “Not if the kraken was not created there. It could have been created elsewhere and slipped away from the control of the Mage who made it. If no other sign of the spell creature is found today or in coming days, they will assume it ceased and vanished.”

  “Good. Did you hear anything else from the legionaries?” Mari asked, wiping sweat from her forehead. While the front of the ship was cold from the river water surrounding it, this back area was very warm because of the heat from the Mechanic boiler creature.

  “They wanted to get back into the city before nightfall, because they were worried about Mara.”

  “Mara?” Mari made a face. “Not seriously.”

  “One spoke in fear when her name was mentioned. He sounded like a young man,” Alain added.

  “It’s the Empire’s own fault. They keep spreading rumors that I’m that undead blood-sucker, and their own people are believing it.”

  “We might be able to use that,” Alain suggested. “If we encounter legionaries—"

  “No.”

  “Mari, their fear of Mara might give us a very important advantage.”

  “No.”

  “But—"

  “I’m not posing as Mara the Undying!” Mari insisted. “It’s a ridiculous idea, anyway. Anybody who sees me isn’t going to be fooled into thinking I’m the Dark One. Even if Mara wasn’t a myth, she’s supposed to be extremely beautiful. Irresistible to men! Why are you looking at me like that?”

  Alain tried to find the right words. Mari looked tired from the long night and too little sleep on top of her work so far this day, sweat marked her skin and spotted her shirt, but somehow that all made her even more attractive in his eyes. “Because you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”

  She stared at him, then laughed. “You’re complimenting me by saying I could pass for the Dark One, who I will remind you is rumored to drink the blood of young men to keep herself looking young and gorgeous. Am I supposed to thank you? Alain, everyone else in the world doesn’t view me through love filters.”

  “Love filters?”

  “It means…Alain, when someone is in love and they look at that person they love, they see everything they want to believe is in them, all the good and all the rightness and everything else, and that comes out as beautiful. Maybe that wears off after a while. I don’t know. I hope not. That’s why you think I’m better looking than Asha. No other man on Dematr would agree with you, but I’m good with that. As long as you believe it, I’m good.”

  Alain thought about her words. “You see something like that when you view me?”

  “Yes.” She laughed softly. “That’s when I first realized that I was in trouble. The first tim
e I looked at you and saw this amazing guy instead of just Mage Alain. To get back to the point, I really don’t think that anyone besides you who sees me would think I was attractive enough to be Mara.”

  “But under the right conditions, the illusion could be important,” Alain said.

  She sighed. “I suppose. You know what? I’m sitting under the Ospren River, and heading back to Marandur, so I can definitely say that stranger things have happened. I’ll keep it in mind. If playing at being Mara might get us out of a tight situation, my dignity isn’t worth even one life that might be saved.”

  Alain went back to his watch, and Asha went down to the bunks to sleep for a while before taking over from him again. He sat in the steering room with the small, round windows circling it, listening to the sounds coming in through the open hatch as barges and boats and the occasional larger vessel went past. None of the people on them spared a second glance for the pile of branches and trunks snagged under the shade of the trees.

  He felt oddly moody. Though his eyes strayed from the river to the river bank and his senses remained alert for any other Mages who might draw near, Alain’s thoughts kept coming back to two visions. One was of Mari as he had just seen her, rumpled and sweaty and tired, but happy because she was working on one of her devices. Was she right that no other man could see her beauty even at such times? It was still a matter of amazement for Alain that such a woman had chosen to promise herself to him.

  The other vision was the one he had had almost a year ago. A vision of some future time. Of Mari, to all appearances near death. When would that happen? Could he stop it? As Asha said, there must be a way.

  Even if that meant taking Mari’s place as the one to suffer a terrible injury.

  * * * *

  The crew of the Terror met briefly for a shared meal as the sun neared the horizon. Mari assured Alain that the boiler creature would be fine if left unsupervised for a short time while it was at rest, so all of the Mechanics were present. Only Asha was not at the small table forward of the ladder, being back on watch for danger, but she was within earshot of those eating.